Serta
'Ingame name :' Sert a Thraul 'Race:' Selket 'Age:' 31 'Gender:' Female 'Job:' Smith 'Proficiencies:' A: Guns, Weaponsmith. B: Charisma, Combat, Knowledge. C: Endurance 'Character Personality:' Serta is a harsh woman of simple pleasures and a lust for experience and gain. She eyes the horizon with lust for conquest, though not through combat. Well versed in metal working, she will still often refuse her art to those she is unsettled by, if only because they may raise a blade or gun against her. She prefers the heat of the sun on her back as she works or sleeps, taking naps in the open air or in a glass roofed house. She also has a tendency to smoke herbs, her preference being the juicy waterleaf that grows in damp sands. 'Backstory:' Two figures sit atop a dune in the dull night that comes minutes after the sun disappears from the horizon. A mother and a daughter, dressed in black silks and silver thread, watch the sand strike up in dust devils on the horizon like grandiose, heavens-reaching towers. The mother raises her hand to the sky and sweeps it out, exclaiming happily in a lilting language. The daughter watches in wonder as she is told of the Selket inheritance, the land they own as birthright. They waited until the previously baking sands began to chill them instead. Months later, a father and the girl stood in a forge. The ring of iron being worked on the anvil broke at her ears as her father clashed his hammer against a strip of molten metal over and over. Sparks flew into the air in great sheets, illuminating the dark tent and dying out on the loose sands below like a thousand stars winking out in death. She watched in wonder from beside the forge, hands at her sides in fear of catching a coal or shard of red hot iron in them. Her father bent and twisted the small ingot of iron between his hammer and a large steel brace. When he was finally done, he dropped the piece in a bucket of water and spoke to his daughter. Steam shot up violently, erupting like a geyser, and the daughter reached into the bucket as it was still warm. She pulled the metalwork from it and looked at in the light of the coals. It was a branding iron forming into a pair of simple letters. "ST." "Of course I'm sure," she says, many years later, "I wouldn't ask for this if I wasn't sure. " She stood in that same forge with her mother. "But you don't need to do this. Times have changed, Serta. You can do his work without this nonsense." "You know I am determined. He taught me what I know. It would be an insult to him, his memory, if I didn't. He had one too." There was silence for a long time as both women gathered their wits and strength. "Where do you want it?" Many years later a woman stands over a forge erected in the same, a pool of stone bricks with burning hot coals as its heart. She pulls a strip of molten metal from it and begins to work it thinner. A man watches from shade nearby, watching the woman and not the work. He watched the young woman's bronze and gold skin as she bends over the forge. He looks at the odd marking on her back, a tattoo of some sort. Or a brand. He knew this woman, and he knew they were her initials. He admired her fine clothes and gun hanging from a belt at her hip. He's seen her peg a vulture from a mile away with that thing... Her work here was a lifeblood. In the same ways that their wells gave them water, this woman gave them protection through arms. Weeks later she stood amidst a crowd, centered to them all. She wore silk and antlion leather stitched with fine gold and silvers. Her name was being cheered by many, her hand grasped and shaken by many. The hot desert wind blew her short hair as she took a small piece of metal into her hands and held it for many to see. The wealth of the Selket came in wits and steel and charm. Who better than this woman to represent them in grand courts so far away, for she had all three to give. She stood amidst a crowd, centered to them all. Her name was being cheered by many. "Serta."